[00:00:05] Speaker A: The Michael Hatfield REMAX team presents Real Estate and more.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Bay Area real estate is different than all of America and why? What's up with home buyers? What's on sellers minds?
[00:00:19] Speaker C: How is the market?
[00:00:20] Speaker B: And much, much more.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: Now here's your host, Michael Hatfield. Welcome to the Real Estate and More show. Today we are back for more exciting conversation that we were unable to complete last week with a man whose expertise has shaped public understanding of our criminal and civil law. Mr. Michael Cardoza, nationally renowned trial attorney and television and radio legal analyst is no stranger to the courtroom or to the camera. We will talk more on the nation's high profile homicide cases to the toughest criminal trials, maybe some civil trial too. Welcome back to the Real Estate and More show.
[00:01:01] Speaker C: Michael, you know what really gets me sometimes is that when these trials are over, you see the DA come out and they politicize it immediately. It's like San Francisco has not had any problem at all with crime. Oh yeah, okay. For sure, for sure. And then, then they, they tend to respond to something that was social media. And you know that, that's an annoyance to me. You know, that looks like the families of the involved have had enough to deal with and now they're going to have to deal with that. You know, it just, it's become more and more that way.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: I get it. I know Musk was the one that talked about San Francisco when the crime after Bob Lee was killed, not knowing exactly how it happened. And then the da, Brooke Jenkins did what you're talking about, sort of talk politically about it. And I was asked on television about that and I said they're both right, Musk's right. There's a lot of crime in San Francisco that needs to be taken care of. And the DA's right because the city gets attacked about those type of things. So I think she had a right to talk about it. And then remember Kate Steinle case? Do you remember that the wharf and remember the guy shot in to the crowd and the bullet ricocheted and killed here? Well, the DA's office got a not guilty verdict in that case. So that's the last big case. So this was, there was a lot of risk for them here trying this big case. Are they finally after that Stanley verdict, going to get a conviction in a big case. So I think they had a right to puff up a little and to talk about that. But there's still a lot to be done in San Francisco with crime. And you've got to, I've seen a change in jurors Michael in San Francisco. And I will tell you, it used to be among defense attorneys and even DAs would talk about this, they would say, hey, if you want to commit a crime, go to San Francisco. They don't do anything to you over there. No, I'm serious. You know, go there and. Because jurors there back then were very liberal and it was difficult to get convictions because everybody's coming in with a different thought and a very liberal thoughts. Jurors are getting tough in San Francisco now. It's finally, I've had enough of this. And jurors, like I say, you know, they brought back, in my opinion, the right verdict in momenti. So they're getting tougher.
[00:03:44] Speaker C: Absolutely. Now, you had a high profile case with a dog mauling. It was a lady in, I believe, El Cerrito. She had a really heavy daughter. Oh, yeah, do you remember that? It was, it was.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: She was Maureen Corrigan. She's now passed. She had a daughter that was 680 pounds. And boy, what a story that was because her daughter passes away and she's 680 pounds, she's about 5 foot 2. They literally had to saw an opening in the wall where the door was, widen the door to get the body out. I mean, it was really, really sad. Now, what happened was, and what sent me right up a wall, there was a picture photograph in one of the local papers. And that photograph was police officers standing in the living room with garbage bags poured out on the living room floor. Excuse me, on the living room floor of garbage and pizza boxes. And I'm looking to go, my God, why'd they do this? Well, during trial, I was cross examining the officer. We're in trial in Contra Costa county, said, officer, you went to this scene and there were garbage bags there. Yes, in the living room.
The garbage was in the bags, right? Yes. I said, you took the garbage out of the bags, all three of them, spread the pizza boxes all over the place, took photographs implying that my client's daughter ate all of those pizzas to reach 600, 680 pounds.
Well, yeah, we did pour it out. I said, and you also found out that her son was at home with two of his friends from college and they were studying for exams midterms.
And I said, and you knew that those young men from college were eating those pizzas, not her? Well, we did know that. But you put that out to the public, didn't you? Yes. And I thought, boy, are you guys this honest. Yeah, I mean, that was evil. Now, what it came down to we hired experts.
My client, Maureen Corgan, took her daughter to Kaiser Hospital 96 times to say, she's 680 pounds. I don't feed her. We've cut her food down. We don't know what to do. Kaiser would not send her to an endocrinologist in their system. They fought it. They wouldn't do it. Their doctor testified. And we chatted about that on cross.
We come to find out that there's a disease and it's a horrible disease called Prader Willi. Prader Willi is a disease that the satiety message, the full message. When your stomach gets full, the stomach sends a message to the brain and says, stop eating. We're full. Okay, well, that is cut off with Prader Willy. So kids keep eating and eating. People who have Prader Willy, kids put chains around their refrigerator. They put chains around their garbage. Because kids that have Prader Willie go into the garbage and eat it.
They bite chunks out of their arms. They light their arms on fire. Fire. Because they don't feel anything. Come to find out that the deceased more than likely had Prader Willie. But the. Here's another thing. They messed up the autopsy. I remember talking, crossing the autopsy surgeon. Actually, I laughed because I thought, whoa. This is interesting because at the end of the direct examination of the district attorney, he asked the DA or the doctor on the stand if there were any mistakes in his protocol. That's the report on the autopsy.
And right at the top of the report, it said, internal autopsy. Meaning they went into the body, looked at the organs and looked at everything. And my first question was, doc, that's the. There were a couple grammatical mistakes in the protocol. Just grammatical mistakes. And I said, that's it. I said, well, let's go through your protocol. Let's start at the very top, the big, bold black letters. What's it say?
Internal autopsy. I said, you didn't do an internal autopsy, did you? No. I said, wasn't that a mistake? This was a gross examination. All he did was go in, look at her on the table and come to a conclusion as to why and how she died. Didn't look inside, didn't do it. I said, you wouldn't call that a mistake. And then we went through the protocol and we ended up showing that it was more than likely that she had this deceased Prader Willi, which was. Caused this intense gain of weight that the mother didn't know about. So that was really an interesting trial.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: We're gonna take a short Break. We'll be right back. ReMax.
[00:09:27] Speaker D: And here's Michael Hatfield.
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[00:10:16] Speaker E: Get help with buying or selling by calling the Michael Hatfield REMAX support team at 1-800-857-63. That's 1, 800-857-63.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: And now back to our show.
[00:10:30] Speaker C: Well, right at the beginning, right at the beginning, you set reasonable doubt right away when you said, okay, well, you poured this out, these pizza boxes all over the floor and you didn't say anything about the two, the brother and his classmates that are there probably eating the pizzas. You created reasonable doubt right then and there.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: Well, they certainly didn't do themselves any favor. But I think more than that, when investigating officers pull stunts like that, and I'll call it a stunt, why are you doing that? That's dishonest. And you know darn well what you're doing. You're trying to influence the public, the potential jurors that might come in to go, oh, I saw that. And then they have preconceived notions. And when I was a DA and I would talk to academies, I would talk to investigating officers, I would say, you know what, your job is to investigate the case fairly. Do your job good or bad, whether it exculpates or implicates. Yeah. The defendant, bring that don't kick to the curb evidence that, that shows that he didn't or she didn't do it. Take it all in.
[00:11:48] Speaker C: Yeah, disclose that sprinkler.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: That's exactly real estate. Exactly. It shows how different jobs, different industries really cross. And that comes down to be honest, you know, and then once you testify and once your job as an investigator is done, go home. What do you care about the verdict? You know, that's not your job. I mean, you're going to naturally care, but don't be so darn invested in it that you're willing to cheat or to do something untrustworthy to try to get a conviction. Not your job. Just go do it. Once it's done. Leave it to the da, the prosecution, the jurors, and your job then is to go back and investigate. When police do that, I find them the hardest to cross examine because they're just. They get up there and they go, hey, here's the truth. And you can tell when they're telling the truth, and when you start digging at them across, you can tell when they're BS in you. And the jury picks that up and therefore doesn't trust and therefore it's more than likely to bring a not guilty verdict back. Wow.
[00:12:50] Speaker C: Wow. I think I've recognized something about you and your personality. I think you like solving puzzles, and I think that's a lot like me. When I was flying with the airline, I would start out a trip, I'd plan, oh, it's going to go this way, that way, and this is going to be my flight from San Francisco to New York. And then everything started changing. The routing changes, the weather changes, the altitudes changes, all of these changes in route. Well, within a trial, I would think it would be a lot of the same thing. I would think that your assumptions and presumptions that you have when you put together your criminal defense, you know it's going to change, but you've prepared for it. So when it changes now, you've got a little bit different puzzle going with things and that you have to fit that puzzle in to not forget what your ultimate objective is going to be. What do you. What do you think?
[00:13:49] Speaker B: You know, it's interesting because when people are on the stand and begin to answer questions that surprise you, you didn't expect it to go that way. You got to change really quickly. And there's an old saying that I don't subscribe to.
And you've heard it before. A lot of your listeners are going to have heard it before. And that's attorney. Don't ask a question you don't know the answer to.
Baloney. There are times you gotta ask questions that you don't know the answer to. So you've got to be willing to take a chance. And there are times where I've asked questions and got myself handed to me. You know, you get your butt handed to you, you go, oh, my God, what do I do now? And you try and look like.
You try and look very stoic. You don't want to look panicked or like, oh, my God, should have asked that. And I've done that. I shouldn't.
[00:14:49] Speaker C: And we do that with our kids, too.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Oh, no question no question. But when you ask a question and you get the answer you don't want, you can't look like it's, you know, really hurt you because that draws a big red circle around it in front of the jury. So you look very stoic. And well, okay, fine. Well, let's go on to a different topic. And that's what you do. So you do change. I mean, I've had such fun cross examining people. I remember in Alameda county trying an attempted murder case where this guy's 6 foot 8, I think, and he was a big guy, he was buffed. You could tell he could bend me in half. And I was a lot younger than an in shape. And I'm thinking, oh, this guy's big and strong. Well, I'm chipping away, chipping away at him. And I finally got him agitated and he actually stood up, stood up during the trial in front of the jury and said to me, I am going to beat your blank. And I looked at him and I went, oh, my God. In my head I go, he has all the ability to do this. And I started to back up and he actually came running at me. And I'm backing up around the table going, oh, my God. Bayla pushed the panic button. He's running up. I'm standing there. By the time he got to me, his defense attorney had jumped in front of him and stopped him. And I'm like, oh, my God. I was so happy he didn't get to me. And then as it all calmed down, of course, I ended my questioning right then, which, you know, you learn that, you go, hey, it ain't getting any better than that in front of this jury. What more should I. I had, like, probably two more hours. I go, nah, I'm done. We're done. See that, ladies and gentlemen? And I remember the jury went upstairs after we argued the case, and within a very short time, within a half hour or so, sent a note back. It was sort of funny. The note said, you, Honor, does the defendant have our home addresses?
If he doesn't, we have a verdict. And I just laugh. I go, so apparently they're really afraid of you, like me. And they judge said back, and no, he doesn't have your home address. And they, of course, brought a guilty verdict back. But fun stuff like that happens. How do you.
What other career can you do where it's that exciting or that real in cases? I mean, I've had, I've been in fights in courtrooms.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back.
[00:17:38] Speaker E: Welcome to the Real Estate Minute with re max expert Michael Hatfield. Michael, what traits should we look for in selecting an agent?
[00:17:45] Speaker A: Look for a deal maker with a positive attitude who will work tirelessly for you. An agent who is adept in multiple offer situations, drafting contracts, marketing and advertising. A client's home is familiar with multiple cultures, experienced in mortgage financing. Inspections and escrow is a huge asset to his client.
[00:18:05] Speaker E: What can you do as a plus for clients?
[00:18:07] Speaker A: Your agent is your eyes and your ears. One who works behind the scenes on your behalf, A great attitude, working well with others and keeping Clients Priorities number one is a given for us.
[00:18:18] Speaker E: Call 925-322-7775. Now to schedule an appointment or complimentary home analysis. For excellence in real estate, call the Michael Hatfield ReMax team at 925-322-7775 or go to michaelhatfieldhomes.com being with Michael and.
[00:18:36] Speaker D: Nancy, I was a first time home buyer and I was very nervous about the process. I didn't really know what to expect. Michael and Nancy were able to take that fear away from me and answered all of my questions. They were right by my side the entire time and they really helped me find the perfect home for me and I'm so thankful. Mike well, we were in the market to buy a house in Pleasanton for a very long time. So we saw this beautiful house. We walk in, we see Michael and Nancy. We just absolutely love this house. Michael brought in a wealth of knowledge and experience to the whole home buying process. He was very professional and both Michael and Nancy went way above and beyond to help us and to help us achieve the house of our dreams.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: And now back to our show.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: And this was in the heyday where stuff happened.
If you don't mind, I'll tell this story. There was a time where these guys, and they're really dangerous guys had robbed a bingo parlor in Oakland, St. Louis Bertrands, and people died or a person died and other people were shot. And one of the defendants, because we were trying, I was trying three of them, prosecuting them, and one of them had gone into a liquor store without saying a word, walked up to Gordon, shot him in the head without a word, just goes up and go bang.
And so that was one of his other crimes. Now we're doing the bingo case. And then the case is I'm walking into chambers and only the defendants, myself and the bailiff was in court because everybody else went into chambers.
And he said to me as I walked by my nickname's Cardo. And he knew that. And he said, cardo, you're a dead man. I'm getting you.
And I looked, I said, what'd you say?
And he said it. I just went right at him. And we mixed it up in the courtroom, and you could hear the bailiffs. There were two bailiffs in the court. Then they're pulling us apart. And as we stand up, the judge comes out going, what's going on out here?
And his name was Darrell Jones. And he said, Nothing, your honor. Mr. Cardoza tripped. And I said, yeah, okay. I'm thinking, thanks, DJ and judge went back in. I came back out, and as I'm passing by, D.J. says to me, carter, I was just joking with you, man. Come on. I really like you. And we did get along up to that point. And I said to him, I said, D.J. you shot a guy in the head without saying a word. When you tell me you or one of your people are going to kill me, I take that really seriously because I never do that to you. I said, okay, if we're square, then all right, I forgot about it. You forget about it. And we went on, and we got along really fine. Got convicted, but we got along same as we did before. It was fine. Those are the. Where else? And what other business can you do that? Oh, it's that kind of fun.
[00:21:45] Speaker C: Incredible. Now, to jump just a little bit, Michael.
The.
The O.J. simpson's case that he had. And. And what was the most damning piece of evidence that. That you recall from that trial?
[00:22:01] Speaker B: I'm not sure there was any damning piece of evidence against O.J. in that trial. I think they clearly showed that O.J. committed the murder. There was, of course, the Johnny Cochran and F. Lee Bailey crossing the LAPD about the N word and whether he had said and he denied it, and they made a big deal out of that. It's like, come on, guys, you know, stop it.
The one thing that I will tell you, the story that I heard and I knew one of the trial attorneys, the guy that did the DNA was a district attorney with me in Alameda County, Rocky Harmon, and he did the DNA, and he was like one of the leading people in the country doing this. And remember the glove?
[00:22:54] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Who could forget the glove? Well, the way that went down, according to the people that I talked to in the courtroom, was that F. Lee Bailey came up to Chris Darden, and if you remember, in the O.J. case, there were two attorneys, Marsha Clark, and there was an older Caucasian attorney, that attorney Had a heart attack before trial. So they moved him out and put Chris Darden in. It's my understanding Chris had not tried a murder trial before. Okay. And they put him in for their reasons.
And here's Darden in there, which I thought on a certain level was unfair to him.
And when they put him in, F. Lee Bailey walked up to him and said, according to my sources. So, you know, I don't know whether it's urban legend or true, but I believe it to be true because these were good sources. Said to Chris, darn, hey, we're gonna put this clavinoje later in the trial to show it doesn't fit. So I just want to give you a heads up. If you want to do it, you can do it. I don't know. Do what you want. Well, seasoned trial attorney goes, what, are you kidding me? You're going me to do it? Why? I'd give it the imprimatur of credibility if I do it like Aeroj, try it on. And so.
But Darden said, I'll put it on him then. Well, that gave it the imprimatur of O. The DA's doing this. And then what O.J. do remember, he had the, I think some plastic gloves on or something. He's tugging and pulling. And now think if the defense had done that, not the da, but the defense, you'd sit there and look at the jury and go, okay, this is orchestrated, this baloney. Yeah. But he gave him the credibility and did it. And therefore, if the glove don't fit, you must acquit. Great line. It'll go down in history. That's how that came down.
[00:24:50] Speaker C: Unbelievable. Yeah. Now, Natalie Holloway, I think you commented that with the Natalee Holloway trial that there was some media on Greta that was available. That was an interview with Van Der Sloot, one of the suspects.
Yeah, there you go.
I think it was in Thailand, and AP News had it, and the DA didn't even want to see it. He wanted to have people tell him what was on it. And I remember you said something about that was just. It was really good.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: Well, there's.
As a da, you want to be the most prepared person in the courtroom. You want to vet. You want to chop up whatever terminology you want to put to it, all the evidence. You want to know a better. What do you mean? I'm going to have you look at it and you tell me why. You can look at it and you can tell me, but I want to look at it to see if I'm seeing the same thing you're seeing and not to do that is shocking to me. It's like, what you mean you're going to take the word of somebody else? No, let me see it too. What? It's going to take you whatever amount of time you do that so you're prepared so you don't get cut off. Which now brings us back to momenti Remember at the end of momenti when the defense, the big bombshell now, none of us ever saw the video of that. The jury did, but the public never saw it. And for those who don't know what I'm talking about, at the end of an argument, the defense said, well, there's a video in that shows that Bob Lee was snorting coke off the end of a knife.
And they said, that's the knife he had on him that he started to attack Momenti with. And I'm thinking at the time it went down and I come in, I thought, oh my God, did it look like a knife? We haven't seen it. But more importantly, why didn't the DA's mention it? Because if I had seen that and it looked like a knife, you'd want to put an expert on or somebody on to dissuade the jury from believing that was a knife. Because the family said after that came out, no, it wasn't a knife, it was a collar. Stay. A male's collar stay. The things we use in our dress shirts to keep the collar straight. They said, that wasn't a knife, that was a collar stay. I haven't seen the video, but that was sort of a big television, radio. Oh, my God, what a bomb blockbuster that was. Didn't turn out to be, apparently. But that's the type of thing you want to look at everything as a DA and be sure you know what's there and to be sure to argue it. Now, I don't honestly know whether they argued it and they certainly got their conviction, but that's what I mean by you want to look at everything and make sure. And you want your. If there's a second chair, another attorney, you want him or her to look at it too and go, what do you see? And then you chop it up between you. You talk about it. Well, what could they do with this? So that's being a trial attorney.
[00:28:00] Speaker C: Fascinating, Michael. Just a fascinating career that you enjoy. And last question that I have, are there any words that you would like to have for the audience today for them to think about?
[00:28:13] Speaker B: God, you're really putting it on me, aren't you? You know it's number one, what you want to do in life. And again, I've told my kids this. There's always, there are always people that are smarter, that are more glib, that are stronger, that are bigger, more skilled at things. The one thing you should do is be the best you can be with the skills that you were born with and you develop those and you be the best that you can be. And when you walk out of a courtroom or whether you walk off a field, if you gave it everything you could, then that means you are a winner because it is all it takes is all you got. And once you give it all you got, you're a winner. And if you lose at something or you miss the deal, as long as you tried and you gave it all you got, you're a winner because you can't do any better than that.
[00:29:23] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: A big thank you to our good friend Michael Cardoza, trial attorney, legal consultant and lecturer, for being so generous sharing his insights with us today. If you ever find yourself in need of top tier legal representation, you can reach Michael Cardoza, Esq. At the Cardoza Law Firm by calling 925-274-2900. Michael, we deeply appreciate your time, expertise and the wealth of knowledge you've brought to our conversation today. Thank you.
You've been listening to the Real Estate and More show. We'll be back in a moment with our next special guest. Stay tuned. Please remember to go to our new YouTube handle, my real Talk Show. That's my real talk
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[00:30:45] Speaker B: Sa.
